Who are Howard and Leiber?

[MonsterMash]

You're right. It should be all Tolkien -- and Howard, Vance, and Leiber ... All The Time.

Not sure I can fit all four together that easily for the approach to fantasy - Tolkien's heroic stuggle against an all enveloping darkness is a bit different from the other three.

The morality (if it can be called that) of Howard, Vance and Leiber's heroes is much closer though

 

[Desdichado]

The characters prepare specific spells in advance by studying spell books. Without taking time to study a particular spell in a particular book they're unable to cast it, and they're only able to study/prepare a limited number of spells at any given time. Once prepared, the act of actually casting those spells involves speaking specific words, making specific gestures, and sometimes employing specific objects (which makes it perhaps even a bit more like D&D magic than Vance, since I don't recall "material components" as such being used in Vance). The only thing missing is the names for spells -- in Vance and in D&D spells have proper names ("excellent prismatic spray," etc.) whereas in Bellairs they don't, or at least they aren't mentioned.

Huh. I don't remember any of those details being true. I'll have to reread it--it's a quick little 100 to 120 page ebook. I think I still have a copy on my computer here at work, even.

 

[Desdichado]

John Carter of Mars and Tarzan are other books that go in and out of print all the time.

Both A Princess of Mars and Tarzan of the Apes, plus many of the follow-up novels, are in the public domain now and are available as text files from Project Gutenburg and other places as well, though.

It may not always be as convenient as a book (although a text file and a PDA probably is for those who have them) but it's certainly easier to get ahold of them than ever before.

 

[Desdichado]

Now, I have to be clear here: those questions are more of a rhetorical nature. Their purpose is to be demonstrative, not inquisitive. I say this because I expect the usual battery of deconstructive response from folks iif not necessarily Merric, quoting each sentence above individually and picking nits and going on about rule zero, etc. rather than actually trying to address the actual source of my consternation--namely, that D&D is adopting the conventions of a video game. That's not healthy, because no matter what lengths the designers go to provide easy methods of removing long-term consequences for players' actions, no matter how much they encourage a "cut-to-the-chase" mentality, the pace of RPG's just don't move fast enough to compete with that market.

I think you create a bit of a false dichotomy though, Felon. D&D doesn't compete head to head, directly with computer RPGs because it offers an experience that is completely different. Taking some of what makes computer RPGs successful and integrating it into D&D isn't necessarily indicative of direct head to head competition.

 

[MerricB]

Just addressing the "computer game reset" aspect of raise dead:

In earlier editions, I got around the lack of accessible raise dead by a simple method: I didn't kill PCs because I didn't want the game to end.

Especially in AD&D, where advancement was so slow. Being unable to continue with an established PC meant the death of all the role-playing and plot threads associated with that character. So, either I made a plotless campaign where such didn't matter, or I didn't kill the characters.

Occasionally, a PC death was significant enough that it gave birth to greater things, but this was extremely rare. Mostly, it derailed the campaign.

 

[Hussar]

Let's look at how a couple of other long-term effects are handled. Consider a character afflicted with a terrible curse or a debilitating disease. In a literary context, it would be a story element; the character would have to struggle to cope with it. In a video game it would simply be a negative effect ("debuff") to be removed with the expenditure of a resource. Going strictly by the book, which most closely resembles the way curses and diseases are handled in D&D?

But, really, that has never changed from 1e to present. Cure Blindness/Deafness has been a second level priest spell and Cure Disease a third since the game went into hardcover. Diseases and curses have always been something to get rid of as fast as possible, most likely with magic. Go find your friendly neighbourhood paladin and get him to cure disease on you and you were good to go.

Saying that this is something new to DnD that has crept in as an influence from CRPG's is ignoring the fact that it was DnD who did it first. The "debuff" idea is drawn pretty much straight from the PHB.

I really think Felon is putting the cart before the horse here. DnD had a much larger effect on the design of MMORGS than the other way around. Most of the elements, particularly of early CRPG's, were drawn straight from DnD - hit points, armor class, magic systems, etc. It's only natural that there would be some cross polination now that CRPG's have become very popular.

 

[Slobber Monster]

Well,
As someone who recently ran a game for a group of stranger at my FLGS, let me say, the ways of gaming are a changing. It is much more tactical now. It seems to be more adversarial than I ever remember. I have been gaming with the same group for 20 years, rarely breaking out and seeing how the rest of the world plays.

1 thing that really bothered me, is after every fight, they would expend their magic, and want to rest. They fought for 2 minutes, spent 15 searching, and now, let's rest to get our spells back. Very computer gamish if you ask me. They want to take weeks to create items, and expect everything to remain static.

This is a symptom of bad adventure design, and not really a fault of the players. Look at it this way - a rational person confronted with dangerous situations who is afforded all the time they want will proceed cautiously and slowly before exposing themselves to further risk. If given the option of confronting every problem with maximum resources they will choose to do so. This is how normal, rational people act, and therefore is not inherently "computer gamish". A key component of adventure design involves introducing some element of time pressure which at least makes such an approach less desireable, if not impossible.

We recently tried miniatures for the first time, actually using AoO and such, and let me say, it is extremely boring and wasteful. I understand that all these tactics are cool if that's how you want to play the game,but for ME, and I am not denegrating anyones choice of game style, I don't like it.

I take it you prefer the old battles which for a fighter basically amounted to nothing more than "I swing, I hit/miss, I roll damage"? Gak, nothing could ever make me go back to that. I prefer for everyone to have interesting choices to make.

I don''t like that characters now have their feats and prestige classes mapped out before the campaign even begins, so they can yoink whatever they can. In my game, I prefer earning pretige classes through actions, not just as something you go to to get Improved Evasion or Mettle. Instead of just saying, I vecome a Harper Scout, the story should revolve around that character finding the Harpers, convincing them to let them join, doing things that Harpers would do.

Someone mentioned that the game is all "kill things and take their stuff" while the poster may have said that tounge in cheek, I think it is becaoming very true. Games that I have witnessed don't seem very story driven anymore.

Enough rambling.

Becoming true? Kill things and take there stuff is what it was all about back in the 80's.

 

[Orius]

Of course, Howard's original stories have recently been republished by Ballantine (so far: The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, Soloman Kane, The Bloody Crown of Conan, andBran Mak Morn: The Last king -- with more to come!).

Apparently they've been selling extremely well in North America. (I'm not sure if they're available in the U.K. and Ireland yet.)

Howard's making a comeback!

Howard, particularly Conan does seem to have a sort of 20-yea or so cycle of popularity. He wrote his stuff in the 20' and 30's. It was reprinted in the 50's and late 70'/early 80's and we're hitting another reprint cycle. So the stuff resurfaces roughly every generation.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The existence of similarities takes all those blanket statements filled with all those "nevers" and "nothings" out of the tautological context you were trying to put them in. You went out of your way to be so utterly contrary, telling me how I'm "way OFF BASE" and that "D&D is NOWHERE NEAR a video game" and based it on nothing more than an abstract concept like verisimilutude, speaking of it like it was some vast, monumental, tangible barrier between RPG and MMOG. Commitment to role-playing is pretty inconsistent from group to group--and in some groups, there is no commitment. Some folks play D&D with the same outlook they would a MMOG.

There are many quite vast, monumental barriers between pen-and-paper gaming and video-gaming. The two do not directly compete. They are very different things, meant for very different effects. They share some similarities, but so do literature and movies, but I'd hardly say the two are trying for the same effect.

You're right, some folks do play D&D with the same outlook they would an MMO. You pointed out those deep-immersion "role playing servers" where people stay in-character, for instance. There's also those who want to use D&D to simply develop character abilities (which is the main goal of most MMO's). Only, people wanting to play D&D like MMO's predates MMO's. Gaining XP for finding treasure? Resurrection magic that is commonly available? Gaining name level?

Thus, you haven't shown that MMOG's are responsible for any sort of change in behavior or game design. D&D has long supported people more interested in gaining treasure and levels than in exploring character deapth, and has done so quite happily.

I will tell you that the emphasis on verisimilitude is not a sacred concept as presented by the PHB, and it is not unversally considered sacred by players. It is something sacred to individuals, and a new player will only pick it up from interacting with them, not from the books. Maybe you're not talking about D&D as presented by the folks writing the books, but I was.

You're telling me a general statement doesn't universally apply? Weeeee-eeell, ain't you just full of keen observations of the obvious.

Let's consult the books themselves, then, to find out how important role-playing is in them?

Your primary role [as Dungeon Master] in the game is to present adventures in which other players can roleplay their characters

Every Dungeon Master is the creator of his or her own campaign world....The setting is more than just a backdrop for adventures, although it's that too. The setting is everything in the fictional world except for the PC's and the adventure plot. A well-designed and well-run world seems to go on around the PC's, so that they feel a part of something, instead of apart from it.

Rules and game balance are very important in this [kick-in-the-door] style of play....If you're using this style, be very careful about adjudicating rules and think long and hard abuo additions or changes to the rules before making them.

In this [deep-immersion storytelling] style of game, the NPC's should be as complex and richly detailed as the PC's -- al though the focus should be on motivation and personality, not on game statistics....Rules become less important in this style. Since combat isn't the focus, ame mechanics take a back seat to character development....Feel free to change rules to fit the player's roleplaying needs. You may even want to streamline the combat system so that it takes less time away from the story."

Your characters star in the adventures you play, just like the hero of a book or a movie. As a player, you create a character using the rules in this book...[several examples of archetypes]...As your character participates in adventures, her or she gains experience and becomes more powerful
...
Your character is an adventurer, a hero who sets out on epic quests for fortune and glory. Other characters join your adventuring party to explore dungeons adn battle monsters such as the terrible dragon or the carnivorous troll. These quests unfold as storiescreated by the actions your characters perform and the situations your DM presents...A Dungeons & Dragons adventure features plenty of action, exciting combat, terrifying monsters, epic challenges, and all kinds of mysteries to uncover...Playing the roles of your characters, you and your friends face the dangers and explore a world of medieval fantasy.

This chapter helps you establish your character's identity by creating details that make her more lifelike, like a main character in a novel or a movie. For many players, the action lies here, in defining a character as a person to be roleplayed.

It really seems that at the baseline of the D&D game lies a heapin' helpin' of storytelling and making PC's "part of the world," (e.g.: verisimilitude). That's certainly not the sole focus, and some groups won't be concerned with it as much, but it is a very prominent focus.

Some folks playing D&D like an MMO is not the fault of MMO's or because D&D is being designed like a video game. Some folks were playing D&D like an MMO before MMO's existed. The most recent edition seems very concerned with creating a character, creating a story, creating dramatic tension, and giving the DM all the tools he needs to do that. Becuase a campaign more focused on story does not need concrete rules (according to the DMG), the concrete rules exist to facilitate a campaign focused on combat.

I'm saying D&D is becoming more like a MMOG with every iteration. So, is raising the dead more routine and prescribed now, or less? Is a 9th-level cleric from OD&D the equivalent of a 9th-level cleric in 3e?

So you think easy raising existing now is an example of making D&D more like an MMO? There are a few problems with this theory:

1 -- Raising has always been as easy or as complex as the DM makes it. People were getting raised on a daily basis before the Apple IIe, and the new edition does not ignore this method of play. Indeed, it has been informed by this method of play, because it is focused on helping people have fun playing D&D. Most people don't have a lot of fun if the entire story of their game is ripped from it's tracks and put on something less-satisfying just because some die rolls didn't go your way that day. Easy raising facilitates storytelling because it allows the group to cut to the chase. For those who prefer more difficulty, the DMG's advice is "ignore the rules and have fun your way!" It sounds more like D&D is inspired by D&D in this case (which I think is very true of 3e in general), not by MMO's.

2 -- Getting raised in D&D is often easier than getting raised in an MMO. In an MMO, time is money, time is XP, time is the one thing that stands between you and the ultimate goal of reaching the level cap. Thus, time spent recovering from death -- whether through XP penalties or some other method -- is time wasted. Time that the player will never get back. It is a permenant loss of power because it is a permenant loss of time and in an MMO, time = power. In D&D, the only comprable loss is a level, and the ability to regain it is dependant upon the DM's pacing.

3 -- When getting raised in D&D is NOT easier than getting raised in an MMO, it is utterly impossible without deus ex machina. For the first 2 levels, it is entirely outside of a PC's wealth range, and by the time it is within the wealth range, it represents a significant sacrifice roughly equal to a +1 weapon (which is ceratinly a big part of a PC's wealth for the first 5 or so levels).

I understand that getting raised is only one example of this percieved "problem," but it, at least, is an example that doesn't hold up under close scrutiny, and thus is not a very good piece of evidence for this theory you have. A death in D&D is usually far less harmful than a death in an MMO, and the ease with which characters are revived is something that has been present in some games (indeed, perhaps even in the majority of games? WotC did do extensive customer research before developing these rules) since long before MMO's came to be.

Let's look at how a couple of other long-term effects are handled. Consider a character afflicted with a terrible curse or a debilitating disease. In a literary context, it would be a story element; the character would have to struggle to cope with it. In a video game it would simply be a negative effect ("debuff") to be removed with the expenditure of a resource. Going strictly by the book, which most closely resembles the way curses and diseases are handled in D&D?

In a literary context, sometimes curses *are* just "debuffs." This is especially ture in a high-magic environment, where the nearest wizard is next door, not on the other side of the Impassable Peaks. If your son was turned into a frog varies greatly in severity depending upon the kind of world in which it happens.

D&D is suggestive of that kind of world, where there are wizards living next door (or at most, on the other side of the kingdom). Demographic tables, the presence of monsters, and the existence of 20th-plus-level NPC's (admittedly as famous figures, but not out of the reach of the PC's) all suggest this. Thus, the ease in which a D&D "curse" (assuming you mean the spell bestow curse and not something more potent and more plot-based, like geas, or a cursed item or artifact) is removed reflects this idea of a believable world. Verisimilitude.

This world is ultimately in control of the DM. As advised above in the DMG, if your desire is to create a great drama, ignore the rules and play the drama. The rules exist to support the play that needs rules the most -- the ones who aren't concerned as much with great drama. Those who *are* don't need the rules as much.

Simultaneously, D&D characters have to deal with cursed items, cursed artifacts, and spells like geas, which more closely represent the feel of sturggling under a burden. Only some of these have the word "curse" in them, but this is no more than semantics. D&D has many methods of exploring this literary trope supported in the rules. If in a story the most powerful wizard in the land casts a dying curse on one who thwarted his plans, commanding him to forever seek a certain liche's phylactery and deliver it to him, in D&D, this is equivalent to a 20th level wizard using geas to do it.

Having shown that the quality and power of the curse is simply a semantics and world-design issue (a handgun is more powerful in a world with cavemen than it is in a world with other guns, after all), it is not surprising that video games do similar. Debuffs exist in video games, and the names come, in many cases, after the mechanics -- call it a curse, call it a handicap, call it a MacGuffin, whatever. What is important in a video game is the mechanic, not the title of the mechanic.

Video games like to have it both ways, though, and they are under no great burden to provide a coherent world like a DM is. So while they have debuffs they call curses, they also have things similar to geas that they call curses. In MMOs, this often involves quests (run this rock to point x in under 5 minutes and do it WHILE AT HALF LEVEL! MWAHAHA!). In more cinematic videogames (such as the FF series) it is entirely a plot point and doesn't affect the mechanics at all (it doesn't matter how many times use cast Esuna, they're still stone!).

So the reality of this particular example is that D&D has "debuffs" it calls curses. It also has literary-style curses it calls curses (and also calls them geas). Removing the debuffs is as easy as finding the nearest bard or cleric (which can be very hard depending upon the DM's design); removing a geas by the most powerful wizard in the land is not so much small potatoes, though. Video games have debuffs they call curses. They also have plot devices and mission criteria that they call curses. Removing the debuffs is as simple as finding a healer-type. However, no one can heal you of plot points and quest requirements,

Seriously, if geas was renamed CURSE and bestow curse was renamed, I dunno, INHIBIT ABILITY, would there even be a problem?

Who decides what's boring? Would the LotR trilogy have been more interesting if the fellowship just went "poof" to Sauron's doorstep? I don't think so. It's those savory moments between points A and B that allow characters to develop and allow tension to build. They make for a good novel, and for a good RP experience, and the official attitude is that they should be gone for the sake of expediency. Forget daring the high seas, just get the cleric to cast Wind Walk so you can jet where you want to go as 600mph intangible vapors. Forget having to figure things out and look for clues, just cast a spell to get the info you need and move things along to the next fight scene.

No one thinks that LotR would be more interesting if the fellowship just poofed around. It is generally agreed that encounters on the way to accomplishing things allow tension to build. The official attitude, however, is NOT that they should be gone for the sake of expediency. The official attitude, as represented in the DMG is "if poofing around isn't fun for you, disable the poofing around, because the story is more important to you than the abilities, and that's okay."

This is perhaps the biggest problem with accusing 3e of being "like a video game." I can't think of any video game where teleporting helped you advance anything, or where divination, I dunno, even EXISTED in any recognizable capacity. At best, teleportation removed you from the dungeon and back to a safe point, but that was only after you got the MacGuffin you needed to get in the dungeon (which is a way to cut to the chase that is rare to find in video games -- think of the original Final Fantasy's quest for the crown, where you fought your way into a den of poisonous swamp monsters, got the crown, and then had to fight all the way back out again...).

High-level magic ruining your story? Get rid of it by playing low-magic or low-level. The DMG, the RAW, Monte Cook, encourages you to do this. It also warns you that some players might not like it, but everyone needs to find the players they are most comfortable with anyway. If ditching rules enriches you game, ditch them and be richer for it.

Altenately, you can embrace these D&D-specific tropes (again, not from a video game influence) and use them to enrich your game. If you as a DM *need* point-A-to-point-B travelling adventures, ban travel magic, and go and have fun. If your mind is open to other kinds of styles, maybe you'll have fun in this other style, too. Much of the advice presented in another thread about using teleportation, loving the bomb, embracing the idea of not capturing PC's, was about asking you to be open-minded about the possibility of the dramatic potential that is achieved without taking away abilities from PC's. Asking you to consider the idea that teleportation does not remove danger.

Video games are often built along point-A-to-point-B adventures themselves. Almost every FF game can be summed up as a series of traveling encounters leading to plot points. A large amount of quests in MMO's revolve around going someplace dangerous and getting some item and coming back to someplace safe and giving it to whoever wanted it. Most video games have only rudimentary teleportation and no divination. If you prefer that video game style, enjoy it.

If a person needs to go into very specific details to explain something to you, don't be so quick to lay all of the blame at their feet because you refuse to see their point of view.

When two people have differing hypothesis, it is only by a comparison of evidence that they have any hope of being resolved. I don't intend to blame anyone for anything, but I do intend to challenge your hypothesis. Hence this LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG post.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Occasionally, a PC death was significant enough that it gave birth to greater things, but this was extremely rare. Mostly, it derailed the campaign.

I think this is the true influence of "easy resurrection" in 3e, myself. It is a story consideration. If death is permenant, and death can be one failed saving throw away, then the story built around the character is subject to being completely derailed by one die roll.

This same reason is also why death is (often) easily reversable in CRPG's, too. If later in the game the main character has to fight the main villain, and the main character dies during the first boss battle...well, that disrputs the story too much to really allow.

I really think Felon is putting the cart before the horse here. DnD had a much larger effect on the design of MMORGS than the other way around. Most of the elements, particularly of early CRPG's, were drawn straight from DnD - hit points, armor class, magic systems, etc. It's only natural that there would be some cross polination now that CRPG's have become very popular.

I entirely agree. One of the first CRPG's, Final Fantasy, had character classes: Warrior, Thief, Wizard, Priest, Bard. It had spell slots. Later in the game you could upgrade your classes (like the prestige classes of earlier editions).